Let me start by saying that I loved this book. I found it interesting, intelligently and compellingly written, full of (obviously heavily researched) insight and highly relevant to what I do at Team Rubber, and what Team Rubber do as a company. But the question I was asked by Andy was not ‘do I like Peopleware?’, it was ‘what did I learn from Peopleware?’.
I have had a few different jobs in my life so far. I’ve seen the way in which different people to work, and the way that they’re affected by different environments. I’ve worked in small offices, in boring offices, in large open plan noisy studios and the present quieter, but very full studio here at Team Rubber. As a producer and a manager I’ve been so pleased to see happy, busy people communicating and getting on well – and frustrated by people so clearly not working to their potential, or looking bored or irritable at their work.
But I’ve never thought it necessary to apply reasoning to people’s working styles. I’ve always found that people’s styles of getting jobs done are something that I’ve had to work with, or around. I’ve never fully considered why people work in the way that they do (although of course I’ve thought about it in passing). That people’s working styles can be so heavily influenced by their working conditions, the teams they work in and their environment. And this is what Peopleware has taught me.
It seems so obvious, and of course it is, that people with fewer distractions get more (productive) work done than those who are constantly interrupted. But Peopleware brings home exactly what distractions are. How easy it is for any of us to get distracted by a phone call, or a question, or loud music – and the impact that this distraction has on work, especially for workers engaged in the kind of work that requires them to get in the state of ‘flow’. To this end, Peopleware has taught me how to protect our developer’s time, and productivity. And has, importantly, empowered me to do so.
Peopleware points out that the cost of these distractions is very real, and that the value of protecting people’s time and space – particularly developers, but the same could be applied to any of us – will be reflected in profit in the long run. Peopleware has lead me to hold an opinion that I never thought I’d have – that it is worth fighting for small rooms with doors for people to work in rather than large, open plan offices. It’s so wrong to me that I should be separated from people on my ‘team’, the people that I’m managing, it almost goes against everything that I want to believe. I want to see the work they’re doing, or at least hear that they’re doing it. But Peopleware has managed to convinced me otherwise. And taught me that managers that think this way are not good managers!
Through good hiring (another thing that Peopleware touches on, again with great insight) you can find great people that will inspire each other to work diligently and productively. People that will work well in teams and have pride in their successes. That want to do well, and will be able to if they are given the right conditions in which to do so. And also – that if you give people the right conditions and the right teams, that they will stay. Peopleware has also taught me the importance (and true value) of retaining staff.
In short, Peopleware has taught me a huge amount about how to effectively manage people and teams that work developing software (and more than this, just generally manage people) – it’s also taught me to understand the way in which I work with those around me. Peopleware has made sense of my past experiences as a producer and project manager – made me realise why sometimes intelligent people don’t or aren’t able to work to their full potential. And finally, it’s taught me how to defend my opinions and the other people at Team Rubber, by giving me substantiated facts about the issues it’s raised. It’s a great book and I’d recommend it to anyone that manages, or works in, development teams as a way of understanding how we all work. Although maybe I won’t recommend it to the competition, it’s too valuable for that.
